So, I played (and finished) Sonic Frontiers, after trying Sonic Forces (and completing it by watching a LP as the game kept crashing on me).
Overall, it's a mixed bag. I'm no rabid fanboy and I only played the classics and Generations and don't know much of the American comic or care. The story of this game takes a bit too seriously and the dialogue with part of the very small NPC cast (Tails and Knuckles respectively) is all about fixing their inconsistent behavior in the latest games... In the worst way possible. Knucks is a hermit that lives alone most of the time, and became the leader of the Resistance in the previous game. Result? His first ingame action results in half of the Resistance being taken out after a distraction maneuver goes badly. In Frontiers, his dialogues are all about proving that nope, he's totally a good commander and not a half-mad hobo.
Tails forgets all his character development from Sonic Adventure and becames a coward in Sonic Forces. In Frontiers he says "I'm inconsistent", word for word, top kek. Half of his dialogue are also references to previous games, so he kind of feels like someone was following a checklist rather than writing a "real" character. Sage's personality seemingly is about becoming a fangirl by observing Sonic alone, kek. Oh, and at one point Amy talks about "spending time away from each other" with Sonic, even though chasing the guy is pretty much her entire personality, heh. No wonder some fans don't like Ian, when he clearly takes things too seriously, but there's not much to work with these characters anyway.
Ultimately though, the story can be skipped as gameplay is what matters. I would say Frontiers doesn't know what it wants to be or needed more time/resources invested, as the cyberspace stages suck ass, the control in the outside world is okay (until the game keeps locking your camera to a 2D plane without warning), the grinding resources element can be skipped entirely by fishing, and the Titan Battles are fought in very small rings and full of QTEs. Oh, and there's barely any warning when you're about to fight the Titans, which is annoying if you wanted to explore the island thoroughly before the fight.
Lastly, you can't skip the credits in any way, in 2023, which is odd as you can skip any other cutscene ingame. And there are no invincibility frames if you're hit.
Overall, I give it 6/10, I found Sonic Generations better and I didn't finish that one yet. Good thing there are some mods for Frontiers that make it less clunky. Fans and younger people may find this game better, I suppose.
The final DLC is meant for true aspies/extra-rabid Sonic fans, as it combines the worst parts of the game, repeatedly: From strict platforming sections with popping and a limited camera not letting you see where you're going, to mandatory battles with bosses with inflated stats, to poorly explained mechanics that you must use to progress, etc.
Playing as Sonic's friends is cool, but they start at level 1 with very little unlocked on the last island of the game, and they don't even begin with a basic attack unlocked, FFS! Thankfully, you don't need to do combat with any of them. Either way, Amy is slower than Sonic but better at exploring as she can triple jump and glide, Tails has no homing attack for some fucking reason, which means he's extra-annoying for some sections (but you can unlock a flying ability that lets him break entire game sections quite easily), and Knucks sucks at everything, not being strong enough in combat due the enemies' inflated stats, and taking 1 second to switch animations and start gliding, which makes him very aggravating to play. In short, watch the DLC somewhere and don't bother, it's not worth the effort.
